Theology

These days we all need to hear good news—that life will soon return to normal and that we will be able to return to the troubles of yesterday, which now seem small to us. In the meantime, our lifestyle has seen changes that we could not have imagined just a few weeks ago.

In Europe, one in twenty people suffer from depression, and one in four will experience depression during their lifetime. In the United States, major depressive disorder affects about five percent of the population.

We have become so accustomed to authors and researchers being highly specialised in niche fields, that we are tempted to be skeptical of works they produce outside of their accepted field of expertise. It seems bizarre therefore that an author of children's literature could also be a professor at Oxford and Cambridge and an expert on the medieval era.

Let's go back in time to the day when Jesus spoke His apocalyptic words. At that time, rather than giving a revelation about the future, He was more concerned with warning about the dangers of deception.

It’s hard to read the description of Jesus’ life in the Gospels and not wonder what the many supernatural healings and other miracles performed by Him mean for us today.

Science and faith, as important tools in the knowledge process, are often perceived to be in a tense relationship with each other, because of the fundamentally different worldviews that characterize them. The implications for life’s big questions are obvious—and sufficient to rob someone of the comfort of indifference towards such high-stakes conclusions.

It is known that many Jews, some even contemporaries of Jesus, claimed to be the expected Messiah. Of these, only Jesus of Nazareth is the name that has endured over time. Still, too few of His contemporaries[1] recognized and accepted Him as the Messiah, and this reality raises a question: why was Jesus rejected?

I grew up on the border between two different universes, not geographically but spiritually. There, across that fine line, lived more than half of my extended family, with a different worldview.

We have trouble understanding and accepting the image of a loving God, as we have grown too familiar with the type of love that offers itself only when it finds in a person the qualities that make them easy to love.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him" (Romans 8:28).

For many years, Dr Jonathan Ward was a military chaplain. When I talked to Dr Ward about his long career, we touched upon some sensitive topics: Does the presence of a Christian chaplain in the military mean God’s approval of military operations? How does a military chaplain serve in the context of a conflict?

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Europe was hit hard by several disasters, the proportions of which are difficult to imagine today.

The danger of the novel coronavirus has given us pause to reflect. As Christian believers, apart from praying, we are expected to examine and question our beliefs in this time, and to seek answers which are rooted in the perspective of the Holy Scriptures.

If God exists, why would I matter to Him?

On the morning of the 15 November 2016, I awoke in a hospital bed, with no memory of how I got there. My favourite pyjamas had been torn from my body, and I lay in a hospital gown, a piercing pain in my head, impaling my brain. I was barely able to think and incapable of speech. I was scared, though this was...